Removing elemental nukes from WHM

[Kinseykinz]

Once again I will state that I never said it would totally "fix" the issue, it would just improve its current effectiveness. I never denied that the spells themselves need to be reworked / tweaked in order to allow the community to actually use elemental affinity, however splitting the spells on seperate classes means to truly take advantage of affinity you would have to pick between the "inconic" elemental caster vs. the elemental/healer hybrid. I don't deny that WHM can do some damage, but pigeon holing the job advertised as the "mage damage dealer" into only 50% of the elements isn't exactly favourable to elemental affinity.

2 things about this:
1. Even if SE did give the current level 50 version of Black Mage ALL the Elemental Spells, you would not be happy because in order to balance the gameplay, Black Mages nukes would have to be very weak, have no enfeebling effects and would probably result in a loss of the 'Ancient Magic' Tier spells for the moment as there would be too many spells for the amount of skills/spells/abilities we can currently have.
2. You said yourself: Black Mage= 'Mage Damage Dealer' So why do they HAVE to have the Elemental Magic? Damage spells are not limited to 'elemental'.

No, I am trying to improve the mechanic of a boring job, by slightly modifying another with a few name changes and animations . . At the moment, I only play BLM when I absolutely *have* to. I am sure a lot of people are in that boat, because it is currently (as we know) a fairly simplistic/boring job. I don't care if it is "my ideal and perfect BLM", I just care for playing a job that is both fun and engaging. Currently it is not.

The same logic could be applied to those of us asking you 'Why take these specific from CNJ/WHM to fix this 'boring' job' The reality is: 'Thunder' is just game-code. You are not shooting actual lightning bolts out your wrists killing real-life dragons. The devs could make the spell look like a pink pansy shooting out the black mages butt if they wanted to...so the 'Stone' spell or 'Aero' spell themselves will NOT fix a job you think is broken. That requires reworking the actual job and it's skillset. This can be effectively done WITHOUT stealing skills from other roles. There is no reason why BLM can't have 'Umbral Spike' etc.

Once again this thread isn't totally proposing this to be changed because realistically - it won't happen. The game is too far along to fix elemental affinity to something usable in the state that it is in. The thread was more of a discussion, to gather ideas or speculate what and how it [i]could[i] be improved.

If 1 class had all the elements, the elemental affinity would be a more viable mechanic, along with some slight spell adjustments, without overhauling a functional job, to make a boring job more fun and exciting.

..except what you are wanting to do is exactly that overhauling a functional job, to make a boring job more fun and exciting And if that was your goal with your Original Post all along, an effective title would have been something like 'Ideas for Making BLM more exciting' or 'Can Blackmage be more than a one-trick pony in ARR?' or 'New spell options for BLM to encourage more engaged gameplay'. and not 'Hey lets take spells from that pretty mage overthere...that'll make everything better'.

Also, lets just say that SE DID change the Mages spell tree so that BLM did aquire Stone, Stonera, Aero and Aerora. What 4 Spells/abilities should Black Mage/THM give up to gain these spells? ( you'd need to give up 6 if you expect their 'Ancient' counterparts as well) Because every job/class needs to be balanced in how many abilities/spells/skills they have.

Again, we're only MIDGAME level... if you notice, yes, White Mage CAN cast 2 elemental magics...Stone and Aero. But they CANNOT cast the 'Ancient Magic' counterpart. More than likely, Black Mage will get Quake, Flood and Tornado as 'Ancient Magics' and WHM will unlock bigger heals and restorative spells once level caps are raised.

[valetarkus]

I love the fact that WHM can deal some damage, and not like it's s ton anyway. They do need to amp up holy imo. It's wasn't as strong as I thought it should have been in 1.0. That's besides the point. Having Aero, Stone, Water all make sense to me. I would hope down the road they will get the stronger elemental skills though like tornado, break etc.

[whoopeeragon]

Mychael's pretty much described my thoughts on all the subjects in a much better way than I have. I'm sorry that I can't get it clear enough like other people in this topic do, but I try.

[Radacci]

I looked at those old skill sets, and i thought they were awesome ;D Looking at that, it would have made more sense for CNJ->BLM, but that would be to OP, since CNJ has cure etc. so you'd be a heal/nuker.
It would have been better if Jobs were separate from classes; so you get CNJ->BLM, but BLM can only use the elemental skills, but not healing/protection; which are CNJ specific.
Looking at old CNJ, i can see it becoming BLM, Geomancer, WHM.
THM could become Necromancer instead, some debuff class.

The point of Umbral BLM is interesting too.
So it would make sense for THM->BLM/Necro. and CNJ->Elementalist/WHM/GEO.

Not to derail, but--even more simplistically, the shroud is a deep forest. It is abundant in soil, trees, streams (which keep the forest alive, and air (again life for the forest). Fire, ice, and thunder have no place in the shroud other than distruction.

Yet there's fire, ice, lightning elementals
Everything in nature isn't all about creation; Destruction plays a part in nature and creation as well. You have soil erosion which give gradual nourishment to the forest. You have volcanoes that spew out large amounts of minerals and nourishment as well; even though it might destroy the forest nearby, the forest will regrow more abundantly. We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for a star exploding.
There's creation in destrution, and destruction in creation; it's 2 sides of the same coin.

[Reika]

Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't Aero and Stone have side effects that are very beneficial to WHM? Like, I remember one has a dispel effect, while the other has a DoT. They definitely do have a purpose if this is the case. That, and I think that WHM should have some nukes, so that they can DD when they don't need to heal.

Then again, I've never really used WHM (I only got to level BLM/THM to max before the end came. ): ) so maybe I am stupid and should leave.

Ive always hated that. Dispell and some of the other debuffs need to be their own spells. Aero is ok to have its Dot (which actually makes aero do more damage than the listed potency...) but everything else that 1.0 did with spells.... not so much. Having Dots attatched to some attack spells to make them do lesser up-front damage is fine, but a dispell? I never liked it. Dispell and Dispellga please.

Very much this. The job that could come from CNJ could be a Geomancer/Elementalist (Though, Elementalist would probably be confusing considering the localization of CNJ in other languages.) that would focus on using terrain magic.

The same could be said for THM. They could make another Job (Necromancer?) that gets all it's old Sacrifice and resurrection spells back.



I remember this faintly. There's an egg the CNJ's have, a Dragon Egg (I think.), that is associated with Wind. Their Patron Goddess, Nophica (I think.), is a goddess of Earth and plenty. So, naturally, it can be seen why those three elements were chosen. Earth for the soil, water to make the soil fertile, and wind to scatter the seeds.

I for one never said anything about removing elemental magic from CNJ, but removing them from WHM. Simple way to do that is when you equip that soul of the white mage, you cant use those anymore and are instead given other things for attacking. That is one way they can separate the solo aspect of the class (which they wanted) from the party aspect of the job (which they wanted). All classes and jobs need to be done that way to give reason to use the class after getting the job, but there never has been a reason other than THM because it was just broken like that. Classes can also be a whole different thing for party play that way, making the number of avaliable 'classes' to play in a party actually 16 instead of 8.

Elementalist/geomancer coming off of CNJ at some time is an excellent idea, and for them, potency increases on cnj base spells and more advanced earth wind and water spells.

[fusional]

you people realize BLM won't be limited to thunder and fire in 2.0, right? you people realize it was a quick-fix design choice to maintain balance while overhauling the combat system and keeping things simple and effective UNTIL 2.0, right? you people realize that the devs mentioned time and time again that it was temporary and things would be more fleshed out for 2.0, right?

okay, so why does this thread keep popping up and why are people still beating the pink pulp and mist that used to be the dead horse? fuck's sake. this forum is overrun with neuroticism.

[kazaran]

BLM has become to weak, that's the issue. It's basic a thunder mage.

It needs the elmetntal balance. WHM and the lore are light based. BLack mages use dark arts and the elements... right now both jobs are a mess, not following story line, and lore.

THe other issue is available jobs out of THM.

[fusional]

BLM has become to weak, that's the issue.

by "too weak" you mean "one of the most consistently strong and borderline-OP jobs in 1.0", right? right? is that what you meant to say?

because if you think BLM was weak, i can *absolutely assure you* either you and your friends were playing it wrong, or you live in another universe.

[kazaran]

You're kidding right? Spamming thunder was your only joy. Except against trash mobs.

[Radacci]

BLM has become to weak, that's the issue. It's basic a thunder mage.

It needs the elmetntal balance. WHM and the lore are light based. BLack mages use dark arts and the elements... right now both jobs are a mess, not following story line, and lore.

THe other issue is available jobs out of THM.

WHM only has heals, buffs and Holy. the rest is from...CNJ!
BLM only has Element skills, and sleep, convert. the rest is from THM!
The problem is that Jobs have to few skills, and rely on other classes.